


Conversations with a God

by therune



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Campfires, Camping, Gen, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 09:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15264738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therune/pseuds/therune
Summary: After DOTO:Billie has a long overdue talk with the person who used to be the Outsider. They talk about death, destiny and of course, their favourite marked people.





	Conversations with a God

They were halfway down the mountain before Billie declared it too unsafe to go any further. It was getting dark and while she wasn't scared of any animals – after all, she was the most dangerous thing on the mountain – it would be foolish to walk in the dark. One false step and all their troubles would be worth nothing.   
She instructed the Outsider to sit down and make a camp with her supplies while she went off to gather wood for the fire. She had a few tins of food left, those would have to do. 

They sat down next to a crackling fire, sharing what they had. He sat opposite her, hand stroking over the ground, marveling at the texture.   
“I see you have many questions, Billie Lurk,” he offered eventually.   
“I do,” she answered, “I can't decide where to start.” She lit a cigar.  
So she asked him about his life, who he had been and how he'd becomea god. Eventually the conversation turned to the Eyeless.   
“I've seen many cults like these. Always used to laugh at them. It's ridiculous what they believe and how they fail to see the power they want when it stands in front of them.”  
They had had a few contracts, back in the bloody times. Sometimes from cultists wanting certain key people eliminated (or requesting absurd quantities of blood) and sometimes for cultists who had killed somebody's loved one and was out for revenge.

“The cultists... they could never see. The power they tried to amass to attract my favor, the lengths they went to in order to get my attention... and all along the clue was in my name.

“The Outsider,” Billie said, realization dawning on her.

“I help the outsiders. The outcast, the downtrodden, the weak and helpless,” he shifted and the shadows the fire cast over his face reached his eyes and for a second, he was again the immortal god he'd been for thousands of years, “you look at my marked and see them now – powerful, able to change destinies. You should have seen them when I chose them instead. They were desperate. And on their worst day of their life, I appeared to them and offered them my mark.”  
Daud had never talked much about his life before the mark, not even to Billie. It made sense now, that his deepest, darkest secret wasn't that he bore the Outsider's mark, but how he had gotten it.

Billie was silent, lost in thought.   
“Why not me?” she asked eventually. I've had lots of crazy shit happen to me, I was beaten, starving, desperate and lonely. I lost Deirdre and you never showed yourself.”  
It came out less accusatory than even she expected.

“Because you weren't interesting,” he said bluntly.

“Really,” she baited, pointing with her hand – made of void and magic – to the eye of a dead god in her face. 

“You were always going to be who you are,” he explained, “I could see your life and you, Billie Lurk, were always going to end up here. That's not of interest to me.”

She wanted to tell him that she almost killed him. That there were a thousand ways this could have gone, a thousand choices she could have made.   
“Why the others then? What made them different?”

“Most lifes are like yours. You're a flower, Billie,”  
She scoffed at that.  
“You have a beginning, grow and end in a blossom, the culmination of your abilities. But some, very few people, are like trees. They branch out into infinite potentials and that can change the world.”

“Like Emily,” she mused.   
“The best example. The Empress could have become cold after the rat plague. Dark, twisted and filled with revenge after witnessing abuse and suffering. But she became Emily the Wise, the Just, and her reign will bring peace to the Isles for years to come. She even changed the past in Stilton's manor, and allowed you to become you. Emily is very interesting indeed.”

Billie could understand that. Emily and the Lord Protector have a profound effect on the world. And Delilah... Delilah had almost changed it completely.   
“And...Daud. Did he ever stand a chance?”  
She missed him.

“He was but a boy when I makred him; taken from his mother. He turned into the Knife of Dunwall and murdered one empress while saving another. In other worlds, in other branches, he died on his first assignment. So he never founded the Whalers, he never trained you and Dunwall changes and ultimately suffers for it. In some, he never leaves the Academy and turns into a natural philosopher, becoming a brilliant immunologist and curbed the plague before it infects too many people. Sometimes, he returns home and lives out his days at the seaside. His actions and inactions made the world what it is today.”

“So you are saying that he created me? Like Emily did, like Delilah-”

Her mind is whirling with thoughts of what-ifs and never-was. There's a pattern she can almost make out. Emily changing the past led to her unique temporal state which in turn led to the Outsider giving her powers. The Lord Protector saving Emily created an Empire Delilah was trying to rule. Delilah had shaped Billie, too, as much as she regretted ever having talked to her, made her turn on the Whalers. Daud had trained her in the first place.

“You are beginning to see,” he looked pleased, “how far the web goes. Only the unique combination of actions has led to this point. No Daud, no Corvo, no Emily, no Delilah, no Billie.”

“And no you,” she concludes.

He grins at that. “I owe you my life, but also all my marked and what they have done.”  
The fire crackled, consuming another piece of wood.

“Did you know?” she asked finally.  
“Yes. Billie Lurk, your journey began over hundred generations ago. And here we are, at the top branch of the last tall tree. I can mark no other after this. And with so many of them gone, the world will go in a less interesting direction.”

But maybe a better one, Billie thought. 'Interesting' didn't seem to be an entirely positive thing when the Outsider was concerned.   
Her thoughts turned inward as they often did lately. The future didn't seem so daunting now. It felt like she could breathe free, for the first time in a long, long while. The empire was in good hands with Emily and her father. No supernatural threats could arise, not because of the Outsider, at least. Delilah was gone, trapped in her ideal fantasy. And Daud had found peace at least. 

“Did you hate him? Did you resent Daud as he claimed? Once, he said that you had abandoned him, cast him aside for new playthings.”   
The tough old bastard had always pretended to not care, but the refusal of his god had gnawed at him.   
“No. I was merely disappointed, as I had become with Delilah. No one can remain interesting all the time, but Daud and Delilah had managed for so long, I almost began to think they could surprise me forever. Delilah did, in a way, but not one I can condone. I was always fond of Daud,” he admitted and Billie didn't know what to say. “I don't play favourites, don't give out help and hints for a cheap advantage, but I liked him.”  
That surprised her. Daud had been trying to kill him, after all.

“He was a hurt boy, abused from the world and one of the first thing he did with his powers was to share them. For the first time in his life, he was in a position to change things and he turned to others like him – refugees, street children, outcasts – and gave them the means to fight back.”  
It occurred to Billie that morality, or what understood as moral behaviour, was different to the Outsider. Maybe it was due to his age, or the years he had seen pass him by. Daud had by no means been a good guy. 

“But he became boring. Of all the things he could have done, of all the possibilities I could see for him – the doctor, the tailor, the voyager, the spymaster and the protector – he chose the easiest. He remained the Knife of Dunwall and was until the empress. After... he broke so beautifully. He overflowed with potential – his fight against Delilah could have gone so any different ways. He could have been late. Killed in a hundred ways before his goal. One of them at your hand, Billie. But he showed you mercy. He saved Emily. He searched for a humane way for Delilah. And disappeared, as he had promised.”

There was the web again. Delilah changed Billie. Delilah changed Daud. Daud changed Billie. Daud changed Delilah. And she....Billie had changed a god. 

“And Delilah?”

“She was so brilliant, so tenacious and imaginative. She saw the worst Dunwall had to offer from high and from low and she vowed to change it all. In her coven, she shared her power with women; poor, disenfranchised, spurned by polite society. She and Daud were so alike, no wonder they hated each other.”

That made her smile.   
She fed another piece to the fire, warmed her hands.   
“What now?” she asked. She had nowhere to go, but it didn't feel bad. The old part of her life was over. She could go anywhere.  
“Do you want me to take you to Dunwall? To Emily and the Lord Protector?”

“I haven't decided... I didn't have anywhere to go for millenia.”

“Do their powers still work?” she wondered aloud. Hers did, but then, she hadn't been marked by him. Her powers came from the Void and that was eternal. Emily had the Outsider's mark – with him gone, no longer a god, could she still access his gifts?

“I don't know,” he admitted and smiled, “I really don't know. A maybe is a wonderful thing, Billie Lurk. Would you like to find out?”

She smiled.  
“Sounds interesting.”


End file.
